Response to The Urban Perspective on Dr. James White (part 5)

Response to the Urban Perspective on Dr. James White and the Question of Historical Trauma

Hi, it's Adam Robles again, and I'm going to wrap up my review of the Urban Perspectives response to Dr. James White. And I hope you've enjoyed the video, not only my side of it, but also the Urban Perspectives side of it.

It's very difficult to disagree so strongly with someone the way these two brothers do with Dr. James White, but still come across in a very reasonable sort of winsome way. And so I applaud these two guys for doing that.

It was extremely interesting and helpful, I think. So it's very easy for these kinds of videos on this particular topic, the topic of racism and discrimination and white supremacy. It's very easy for those to get very contentious and combative and accusatory.

And I don't think that these two brothers did that. So I hope that you would consider, if you haven't already, watching their video in its entirety. It's about an hour long. But also, I hope you consider subscribing to their channel, because it is definitely a very helpful channel to have in the church in this culture today.

So I wanted to finish up this review jumping to the end. There's a section where Pastor James White has sort of a chance to sort of give his final thoughts on the topic. And he chooses to use this time to talk to black people specifically.

But he also says that, you know, obviously this could have some application to other kinds of minorities as well. And so I wanted to hear it. When I first listened to it, I thought it was awful. I thought it was a call for unity, but it was very much couched in language of disunity.

But I listened to it a couple times since, and I think I misunderstood him the first time. So I actually like it. But I will try to, you know, limit my responses so you can kind of hear him in his entirety, because he's obviously emotional about this.

He's obviously very passionate about this. And I love it. So I'm going to play it. And again, I'll start and stop it the way I normally have done, but I'll try to do that a little bit less.

Historical Slavery, the House Versus Field Divide, and Its Aftermath

In light of the myriad of topics that we covered today, just any final thoughts you want to share? You know, it's interesting. Here's some final things that I think I want to take an opportunity to say.

And this may sound a little strange, but here I've been thinking here lately about where we are in the time period that we're in. And this is going to, some of you, as you hear this, you may think that, man, this is just historical.

I'm making a huge jump. Sometimes I wonder if even for those of us, and I'm going to speak primarily to African American, this certainly can deal with other ethnic groups as well, but sometimes I wonder if some of the historical dynamics that we have faced out of that 200 years of slavery are still with us.

One of the things that would happen during slave times is you had this separation between the slave that was in the field and the slave that was in the house. And you almost said the slave master intentionally creating a power construct so that there wouldn't be, once again, communication and connection, and as well, that separation even of family, separation even of the deconstruction of men and women being in healthy relationships.

And so this idea of separation, in some ways, became embedded within the African American experience and psyche.

Yeah. So this is interesting because we don't want to deny the reality that historical issues, historical problems, and just even historical events do have an impact on the future. They have an impact on how things are today.

And so he mentions the idea that there was these separations that were in many instances intentionally perpetrated on black people, separations between the slaves that were in the field versus the slaves that were in the house, separations between family structures and keeping families separated.

And these were intentional things that slave owners did to make the slave population weaker, to make them more easily controlled. I've read some horrible stories of abuses that were done to slave fathers in front of their children so that the children would look down on their own fathers.

And it's horrible. It is absolutely horrible. If you don't know about these things, you should research them because it is awful. And they do have an impact on the way things stand today. It's interesting because as I've started to engage in this conversation a little bit more, I've been called a house slave in so many words.

And I'm not even black, obviously, but people, they say that anyone that in their opinion is not thinking the right way about these issues is sort of like a race traitor. And so they'll call you a house slave, and that's a derogatory way to sort of label you as someone who's kind of an enemy of the race, so to speak.

So I know exactly what he's talking about. This is absolutely something that still is prevalent today. And so let's listen to more of what he has to say. And the thing that's so beautiful about Christianity is it has the answer to this kind of stuff.

So let's hear him out.

Christian Unity, Black Leadership, and Stewardship of Social Media

Which is so contrary to the gospel. You know, I would say to those of us in the time period that we're living in, especially for Christians who are African-American, and I want to make sure that I've got the right position on that language.

Here's just a suggestion from one who has been journeying for many years now. One of the things that's frightening for me, that's always been the question, especially for conservative African-American biblical Christians, is why don't we have more unity?

Why is it that you don't see us connecting together? It's almost as if we're afraid that we'll make the wrong statement with having unity. And yet we live in a time period now where I'm excited to be doing, again, this experience with an incredible leader and Bible teacher in Pastor Jerome Gay.

But I'm excited he's not the only one. We've mentioned Jamar Tisbee, who, again, is doing some things that go beyond what we could ever imagine. Hey, there are a number, again, of African-American women who theologically are on the scene now that are doing some things, shaping some things, that even at the conference where Jamar had, there were some women who really are leading in ways that go beyond.

And right now I'm speaking maybe even to some of my own friends and people I know. When I think of Eric Mason, again, Dr. Eric Mason and Epiphany Church and Planning Other Churches, doing some incredible things right now.

When I think of the Hottie Lewis as well at Blue Pit Church, that has a legacy that has been incredible right now. When I think all across this country, you have young African-American leaders. When I think of Thabiti Anyabole, Thabiti is one of the brothers now with gray hair who has influenced a number of people who, unfortunately, in many interviews, people have tried to set Thabiti apart so that he could have no voice to speak into his experience as an African-American pastor, and that's tragic.

And sometimes I think well-meaning white brothers and sisters, they can do that by, again, giving many of those who I've named platforms for their conferences and everything in a way that would make it seem like that there is no connection that we can have when it comes to speaking specifically and uniquely to issues that influence the African-American community.

My hope is that this generation, and even the generation to follow, will have a level of unity that will speak volumes to, again, the prayers of those from African descent. Because I really believe we are an answer to the prayers of slaveholders and those who were slaves that couldn't even have a voice in moments like this.

I also pray that we would use social media with a level of stewardship and that we would use it, once again, to build one another up. Because there is a community that is still living, as Langston Hughes says, a dream deferred.

And my hope that we wouldn't fall into that, that we would create and make a culture that speaks to the kingdom of God in a way that will be mysterious, in a way that has power. My hope, if you're listening to this, that you would understand we're in a critical time period where we can't play the same old narrative that there's a difference between the one in the field and the one in the house.

Pastor White.

You can definitely see he's passionate about this, no question about it. And, you know, it's a little hard to decipher some of what he said because I'm just unfamiliar with some of the issues. He mentioned some issue of, you know, Black brothers being given a platform, but it's been kind of a unhelpful platform.

I'm not exactly sure what he means, so can't really comment on a lot of that. But this idea of there's a difference between, you know, the slaves that's in the house and the slave that's in the field, you know, we need to end that right away.

It's ridiculous that I've been called a house slave. You know, it doesn't make any sense because it's almost like you're assuming that my intentions are nefarious, you know, that I intentionally want to hold back my, you know, brothers and sisters who are in the field, right?

And that's just so far from the truth. You know, every Black conservative that I know, every Black libertarian that I know, every Hispanic conservative that I know, they're not doing it to hold anyone back.

They believe the things that they believe because they think that they're, first of all, just. They think that they're right and morally correct, but also because they think it's going to help more than what they see from the left, more than what they see from the liberal side.

When you see, I mentioned Larry Elder, a libertarian, he always talks about this. There's Thomas Sowell always talks about this kind of thing, that, you know, the welfare state hurts Black people. It hurts Hispanic people.

And what we see from the liberal side of things is that they want more of that. And, you know, we're like, look, this is hurting. We want, we need to end this kind of thing. I think that this focus on rampant white supremacy, this boogeyman, it's not even real.

I think that hurts Black people. I think it hurts Hispanic people. And that's why I question it. That's why I say, you know, let's talk about the facts. And so this idea of there's a difference between the house and the field, it's got to stop.

It's got to stop because there will always be disunity as long as people continue to use those same paradigms. And to be perfectly honest, the only side of this issue that I see those paradigms being thrown around is the liberal side.

I've never seen a conservative Black man or Hispanic person say, there's a difference between, you know, me and you. And it's because it's the same difference as the house slave and the field slave. I've never seen it ever happen from the conservative side of things.

So, you know, this is something that those of you who are watching this that sort of believe sort of the liberal side of this argument really need to come to terms with it. Take a good look in the mirror and say, why do I assume that when I see a brother who's on the other side of this issue, why do I assume that they just don't care, right?

They have a different experience. They don't care about those of us in the field. It's ridiculous. And it just has to stop. And so, man, I don't know if that's exactly what Pastor James White was saying there, but it sounded like it.

And I hope it is because that is a call to unity that I can absolutely affirm 100%. I want to wrap this up with the other brother, Pastor Gay, I think is his name. Um, he has an interesting little tidbit here, and I think I want everyone to hear this because this is important.

Tri-Perspectival Interpretation, Matthew Henry, and Cultural Bias in Exegesis

Thank you so much. Oh, man. Good to be with you. I appreciate you. Yes. Dr. White, I'm sure you're familiar with tri-perspectival interpretation. You know, people like Cornelius Van Til, John Frame, Richard Pratt, and others are students of Cornelius Van Til's teachings.

And he talks about this, John Frame himself talks about this tri-perspectival approach to interpretation, which first we bring the Bible, the normative perspective. Then we bring our theological tradition, the situational perspective.

And lastly, we bring our Christian experience, the existential perspective. This is seen most clearly in Matthew Henry's approach to James chapter 2, verse 2. In James chapter 2, verse 2, James is clearly talking about the issue of favoritism.

But Matthew Henry, he goes as far as to say this,. But why would Matthew Henry say that? Because of the third component, his Christian experience. Within his tradition, pew purchasing was fine. And so the more money you had, the better seats you got.

He's clearly putting his Christian experience and his culture above what James says himself. My question for you, Dr. James, is are you doing the same thing? You frequently reference Philippians chapter 2 and what Jamar needs to give up and how there needs to be mutual sacrifice.

But the only thing you mentioned you giving up is the Trinity hymnal. God is calling you yourself to give up more. Yes, Philippians 2 applies to black and brown people and people of all hues, but it applies to you as well.

Perhaps you're doing the same thing Matthew Henry is doing, but yet you have not displayed the humility to admit it.

Yeah, so interesting, right? Because Matthew Henry is an authority, right? He's someone that we go to, almost everybody has a Matthew Henry commentary that they can reference to talk about various Bible passages.

And that example that he gave about James chapter 2 is kind of shocking, right? I've never seen that before. And so we need to understand that with humility, we do absolutely bring cultural, experiential biases to the text and we need to be aware of that.

And so when somebody comes to us and has a different perspective and challenges us on one of these things, we need that humility, right? To think, you know, I could be bringing something to this text that's not really there because, you know, I haven't looked into the Matthew Henry thing, but man, that certainly seems to be the exact opposite of what James was teaching.

So yeah, very interesting. And then he kind of presents James, Dr. James White with a challenge. Maybe he's doing that exact same thing. Maybe, maybe. I haven't seen any evidence that he is. And I think that it's interesting that he kind of presents that challenge, but he doesn't really give a specific example of where his interpretation would be culturally derived as opposed to exegetically derived.

So with that, I think that's the end of my review of this video and I hope it was enjoyable. I plan to do more of these. Like I said, there's going to be a Nine Marks article that I'm going to review that unfortunately I don't think is as good, so it will be a lot more disagreement.

But to the brothers in this video from the urban perspective, thank you for doing it. I think it's a great example of how we can disagree on important topics and do it in a way that is Christ honoring, right?

And so thank you for it. I'm looking forward to watching more of your stuff. And if you ever do watch this video again, I just want to thank you.